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Tutorial - Plate Splitting

Introduction

In this tutorial, you will learn how to split a plate into multiple smaller format plates using the Plate Splitting workflow.

Prerequisite

Required permissions and setup

Sample Processing role is required to access this workflow.

Required system configuration:

  • Container Types: Greiner PP96V,
  • Container Usage Inventory,
  • Solvent DMSO,
  • Worklist Generator and Parser: Standard (Container) (;)

Those should exist by default in Sample application.

Items

Containers and Locations created from Discngine Sample’s automation will be used:

  • 2 plates 384 (100 uL – 10 mM). Layout with columns 1 and 24 as empty.
  • Paris location.

Automation is run during installation if “example_dataset” is set to true in the configuration file.

Workflow

Job Initialization

Create a new job and select the Plate Splitting workflow.

Requesting

  • Set Source Type as Plate
  • Set Target Plate Barcode as Generate New Barcode
  • Select Greiner PP96V as the Target Plate Type
  • Specify Request from Text
  • Copy/paste the plate barcodes in the text area: PTEST007:PTEST008
  • Click Add IDs to confirm. The plates are listed in the added requests.
  • Click Next

Task Requesting

  • Source Selection Mode = All Sources
  • Source Quadrant = 1
  • Target Usage = Inventory
  • Number of Copy = 1
  • Target Volume = 30 μl
  • Dilution = Target
  • Dilution Mode = Dilution Factor
  • Dilution Factor = 10
  • Solvent = DMSO
  • Offset Volume = 0%
  • Offset Solvent = 0%
  • Click Add Task. One task is added. Repeat these steps for Quadrants 2, 3, and 4 (four tasks are created).
  • Click Next

Sourcing

The Sourcing page will confirm that the requested operations are compatible with the source plates (information in the "Sourced" column).

  • Click Next

Processing

For processing, requested tasks are translated into a worklist that you can feed to your robotic equipment.

  • Select the Standard (Container) (;) equipment
  • Set File Order to By Request
  • Click Generate worklist

A worklist file appears in the Worklist Generator area. It contains the requested tasks to execute. The Worklist Parser area expects a file containing the information about the tasks that were actually completed. By default, the generated file is set in the Worklist Parser. For this tutorial, we assume that every task was completed successfully, so we’ll keep this default file.

  • Click Copy Worklist
  • Click Next to propagate those changes in the system. The tasks are processed in the Sample application.

Storing

The Storing step allows you to assign a location to the items involved in the job. First, for the output plates (plates created during the job). Eight target 96-well plates have been created from the two input 384-well plates.

  • Click Assign Location to Selected
  • Select Paris and click Select to confirm your choice.
  • Click Next to continue to the input plates. Here, we won’t change the input plates location.
  • Click Next You can increment the Thawing Cycle count of the input plates if necessary.

Pipe & Close

The Pipe & Close step provides a summary page where you can review the job and optionally pipe it to another workflow. You can also pipe this job to another one, allowing you to immediately start a new job using the output or the input plates from this one. For this tutorial, click Close & Quit to finish the job.